This invention pertains to a liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink useful for transferring and printing appropriate print patterns such as wood grain patterns, marble patterns or other patterns by using a liquid pressure on an objective article (a body to which the print pattern is to be transferred) having a three-dimensional surface such as a curved surface or the like. More particularly, this invention pertains to an improvement on a liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink which is suitably useful for printing the print patterns to be transferred on an outdoor objective article such as a car body, a guardrail, a fence, a gate, a bridge and so on which tends to be exposed to severe outdoor atmospheres such as sunlight, wind and rain and so on.
Furthermore, this invention pertains to a pattern-transferring film having a print pattern printed thereon by the liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink, a liquid pressure pattern-transferred article having a predetermined print pattern transferred from the pattern-transferring film by using a liquid pressure and a method of transferring a print pattern on an objective article by using the pattern-transferring film.
A method of transferring onto an objective body or article (a body to which a print pattern is to be transferred) by using a liquid pressure a print pattern on a pattern-transferring film floated on a liquid surface has been used for printing the print pattern on the objective body having a three-dimensional surface such as a curved surface and so on. The liquid to be used may be typically water, but may be a liquid other than the water if it has no trouble for the liquid pressure pattern-transferring operation.
This liquid pressure pattern-transferring method is one in which a liquid-soluble or liquid-swelling pattern-transferring film having a predetermined print pattern of no liquid solution provided thereon is floated on a surface of a liquid flowing within a transferring bath and is made swelled by the liquid and then the objective body is immersed into the liquid within the transferring bath in a manner faced to the pattern-transferring film and has the print pattern transferred from the pattern-transferring film by using a liquid pressure.
In case that there should be printed a print pattern to be transferred on such an objective body as is used in a place such as a building room or a car room where it is never exposed to an outdoor atmosphere, a printing ink is not so much required to have a weather resistance.
Of late, a curved face printing art utilizing the liquid pressure pattern-transferring process has been required to be applied not only to inner articles to be placed within a car, but also to outer articles to be placed outside the car and furthermore to outdoor building materials or outdoor structures such as guardrails, gates, bridges and so on which are to be used for a longer period.
In case that there should be printed a print pattern to be transferred on such an objective body as is exposed to severe outdoor atmospheres such as wind and rain, sunlight and so on, the printing ink is required to have a weather resistance so that the color of the transferred pattern neither changes nor fades while it is exposed to the severe outdoor atmospheres for a longer period. In case that the articles such as the guardrails, the gates, the bridges or the likes on which the print pattern is to be transferred by the liquid pressure pattern-transferring process have a life span of ten and several years to several decades, the surface of the articles on which the print pattern is transferred under the liquid pressure is required to have the same life span as the articles.
In general, the printing ink for printing the print pattern on the pattern-transferring film to be used for the liquid pressure transferring process comprises a resin serving as a binder or a vehicle, a plasticizer serving to adjust a hardness of the resin, a pigment serving to provide a color thereto and a solvent serving to solve the resin into a liquid. The print pattern to be used for being transferred under a liquid pressure may be formed by a gravure printing method by using a single or a plurality of inks among yellow, red, blue, white and black inks while they are of a primary color or of a blended color so that a variety of colors appear where dots of the primary or blended color are superposed one on another.
A printing ink of prior art includes a resin having an alkyd resin as a fundamental component and also includes a relatively inexpensive pigment having a sharpness of its color. More particularly the prior art printing ink comprises a resin ingredient including a short-oil alkyd resin of 2 to 15 weight % and a nitrocellulose of 3 to 20 weight %, a plasticizer including a dibutyl phthalate of 2 to 7 weight %, a color pigment of 5 to 40 weight % and a solvent of the residue weight %. There is used a phthalocyanine blue as a blue pigment, an anatase type titanium white as a white pigment, a carbon black as a black pigment, a permanent red as a red pigment and a disazo yellow as a yellow pigment.
Such a prior art printing ink has no problem when it is used for printing the print pattern on the surface of the indoor objective body by the liquid pressure pattern transferring method, but it is confined that in case the prior art printing ink is used for printing the print pattern on the surface of the outdoor objective body exposed to the severe outdoor atmospheres such as sunlight, weather and so on for a longer period, the color of the print pattern transferred on the objective body and tentatively and continuously exposed to the severe atmospheres tends to change or fade. It is also confirmed that the transferred pattern loses the original good state or is removed out of the surface of the objective body under the same tentative condition.
Imagining that the color of the transferred pattern changing or fading was caused by the properties of the pigment in itself of the printing ink, the applicant made a weather resistance test on various metal test pieces having the printing inks of various colors daubed by using a sunshine weather meter based on JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard) so as to confirm the weather resistance (weather resistance hours) of the pigments included in the prior art printing inks. As a result, it was confirmed that the colors of the phthalocyanine blue as the blue pigment and the anatase type titanium white as the white pigment neither changed nor faded even in more than 3000 hours and the color of the carbon black as the black pigment neither changed nor faded even in more than 5000 hours, but the colors of the permanent red as the red pigment and the disazo yellow as the yellow pigment changed or faded in about 1000 and 500 hours, respectively. Thus, it will be noted that the color of the pattern transferred from the print pattern on the pattern transferring film formed by using the prior art printing ink changed or faded because the pigments had a poor weather resistance.
It is presumed that it is caused by lowering the function of the resin ingredient to disperse the pigment in the printing ink when time elapses that the actual transferred pattern provided by using the prior art printing ink loses its original good state.
As previously described, the transferred pattern on the outdoor objective article (body) such as the car outer article, the building material, the structure and so on is required to have a weather resistance of ten and several years to several decades corresponding to the life span of the outdoor article. It corresponds to the weather resistance of about 5000 hours determined by the weather resistance test using the sunshine weather meter based on JIS (Japanese Industrial Standards).
However, with the prior art printing ink used, the entire color of the transferred pattern is unbalanced due to the lower weather resistance of the red and yellow printing inks prior to the life span of the article and as a result, the color of the transferred pattern on the outdoor objective article tends to change or fade. Furthermore, the transferred pattern disadavantageously changes from the original good state so that the transferred pattern has the appearance deteriorated or is removed out of the objective article.
Such a liquid pressure pattern-transferred article sometimes has an undercoat provided before the print pattern is transferred under the liquid pressure or an overcoat provided thereafter. In this case, both of the undercoat and the overcoat are required to have the weather resistance identical to that of the transferred pattern.
Furthermore, the structure such as the guardrail or the bridge is required to have a decorative layer applied thereto. The structure has a surface area extremely larger than those of the indoor article and the outdoor article such as the car outdoor article. Thus, a larger amount of paint (varnish) or ink will be required for applying the decorative layer onto the structure, which prevents the decorative layer from being economically produced thereon.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to effectively transfer a print pattern under a liquid pressure onto an outdoor objective body while a transferred pattern printed on the objective body has a weather resistance of at least about 5000 hours on measurement by a sunshine weather meter based on JIS (referred to as a weather resistance of about 5000 hours hereinbelow).
It is another object of the invention to prevent a transferred pattern printed on an objective body from being deteriorated even after a long period elapses and from being removed out of the surface of the pattern transferred body so that the original good state of the transferred pattern can be maintained for a longer period.
It is further object of the invention to apply a decorative layer of higher weather resistance onto a structure such as a guardrail, a bridge and so on by using a possibly lower amount of paint or ink.
The present invention is to provide a liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink adapted to accomplish the aforementioned objects, a liquid pressure pattern-transferring film having a print pattern printed by the liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink, a liquid pressure pattern-transferred article having a transferred pattern obtained by using the liquid pressure pattern-transferring film and a method of producing the liquid pressure pattern-transferred article.
A first feature of the invention is to provide a liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink comprising a resin ingredient and a color pigment, said resin ingredient being composed of a fluoropolymer resin and said color pigment being an inorganic pigment.
A second feature of the invention is to provide a liquid pressure pattern-transferring film having a liquid soluble or liquid swelling base film and a print pattern printed on said base film, said print pattern being printed by using a liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink comprising a resin ingredient and a color pigment, said resin ingredient being composed of a fluoropolymer resin and said color pigment being an inorganic pigment.
A third feature of the invention is to provide a liquid pressure pattern-transferred article formed by transferring a print pattern from a pattern-transferring film to an objective body by using a liquid pressure, said print pattern being printed by using a liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink comprising a resin ingredient and a color pigment, said resin ingredient being composed of a fluoropolymer resin and said color pigment being an inorganic pigment.
A fourth feature of the invention is to provide a method of transferring a print pattern from a pattern-transferring film to an objective body by using a liquid pressure, said print pattern being printed by using a liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink comprising a resin ingredient and a color pigment, said resin ingredient being composed of a fluoropolymer resin and said color pigment being an inorganic pigment.
A fifth feature of the invention is to provide a method of transferring a print pattern from a pattern-transferring film to an objective body by using a liquid pressure, said print pattern being printed by using a liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink comprising a resin ingredient and a color pigment, said resin ingredient being composed of a fluoropolymer resin and said color pigment being an inorganic pigment.
In the first through fifth features of the invention, the fluoropolymer resin may be preferably a vinylidene fluoride, but it may be a vinyl fluoride resin or a fluoroolefin copolymer. The color pigment for the yellow ink may be at least one selected from a group of an iron oxide, a titanium yellow and a lead chromate, the color pigment for the red ink may be at least one selected from a group of a rouge, an iron oxide and a lead molybdate, the color pigment for the blue ink may be at least one selected from a group of an iron blue, an ultramarine blue and a cobalt aluminate, the color pigment for the black ink may be at least one selected from a group of a carbon black and an iron oxide and the color pigment for the white ink may be at least one selected from a group of a titanium white, a white lead and a zinc white. The print pattern may have a design as a collective form of dots provided by a gravure printing method using one or a plurality of printing inks selected from the five color inks while they are maintained at its primary color or blended. For instance, the outdoor building material or the structure may have a designed decorative layer as a whole applied thereto by combining a ground color of the undercoat and the liquid pressure pattern-transferred layer transferred from the print pattern which is in turn printed on the film by using the printing ink of the single color. Materials for a fence and a gate may be examples of the building material while the guardrail and the bridge may be examples of the structure. It should be noted that, in the description, a term xe2x80x9ca single colorxe2x80x9d means that it includes one of a plurality of medium colors obtained by blending a plurality of color inks as well as each color of black, white and three primary colors such as red, blue and yellow.
In the third through fifth features of the invention, a resin ingredient for one or both of the undercoat applied before the print pattern is transferred on the objective body and the overcoat applied thereafter may be preferably a fluoropolymer resin, which may be typically a vinylidene fluoride, similarly.
The fuluoropolymer resin which is the resin ingredient for the printing ink is never deteriorated even though it is exposed to severe outdoor atmospheres for a long period while the inorganic color pigment which is the color pigment for the printing ink has a weather resistance of more than 5000 hours determined by a JIS sunshine weather meter.
The print pattern on the pattern transferring film used for the general liquid pressure pattern-transferring operation is obtained by forming a design as a collective form of dots on the pattern-transferring film by a gravure printing method using one or all of the five color printing inks or the blended inks obtained by blending these color printing inks. Since the liquid pressure pattern-transferring ink comprises the resin ingredient of the fluoropolymer resin and the inorganic color pigment even though it is of any color, the printing inks of all colors have the weather resistance of 5000 hours or more. Thus, the resin ingredient is never deteriorated while the color of the transferred pattern layer obtained by the single color printing ink neither changes nor fades and furthermore the color of the transferred pattern layer of the collective dots obtained by a plurality of color printing inks neither changes nor fades, which is caused due an unbalance of the weather resistance of the printing inks, if otherwise. This enables the transferred pattern layers to have the weather resistance of 5000 hours or more.
Since one or both of the overcoat and the undercoat applied on or under the transferred pattern layer include the fluoropolymer resin, their weather resistance is improved and enables to provide a baking finish therefor and in addition thereto the three layers of the undercoat, the transferred pattern layer and the overcoat have an adhesive property improved by the fluoropolymer resin included in the transferred pattern layer.